TRIPOLI: Hundreds of migrants have been relocated in Libya’s capital from government-run detention centers after getting trapped by clashes between rival groups, UN and aid sources said on Thursday.
The migrants had been abandoned after their guards fled fighting pitting rival groups vying for power and state funds, a recurring theme in the North African country since the chaotic overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in a 2011 NATO-backed uprising.
Hundreds of migrants have been brought to a “safer place” from two centers run by the UN-backed government from the Ain Zara area in southeastern Tripoli, aid workers said.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR “in coordination with other agencies and the Department for Combatting Illegal Migration (DCIM) facilitated the transport of all persons in Ain Zara,” it said in a statement.
The migrants were mainly Eritrean, Ethiopian and Somali nationals who were brought to a separate detention center away from fighting.
However, a few people were still awaiting their evacation at Ain Zara, an official at a separate international organization said.
Libya is the main departure point in North Africa for migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, mainly from other parts of Africa.
The number of crossings has sharply fallen off since Italy provided the coast guard with more boats and brokered deals with local groups in a smuggler hub last year.
Libya evacuates with UN help migrants trapped by Tripoli clashes
Libya evacuates with UN help migrants trapped by Tripoli clashes
- The migrants were mainly Eritrean, Ethiopian and Somali nationals
- Libya is the main departure point in North Africa for migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe
Sudan’s war robs 8 million children of 500 days’ education
- British NGO Save the Children says many teachers are leaving their jobs due to unpaid salaries
PORT SUDAN: Almost three years of war in Sudan have left more than 8 million children out of education for nearly 500 days, the NGO Save the Children said on Thursday, highlighting one of the world’s longest school closures.
“More than 8 million children — nearly half of the 17 million of school age — have gone approximately 484 days without setting foot in a classroom,” the children’s rights organization said in a statement.
Sudan has been ravaged by a power struggle between the army and the Rapid Support Forces since April 2023.
This is “one of the longest school closures in the world,” the British NGO said.“Many schools are closed, others have been damaged by the conflict, or are being used as shelters” for the more than 7 million displaced people across the country, it added. North Darfur in western Sudan is the country’s hardest-hit state: Only 3 percent of its more than 1,100 schools are still functioning.
In October, the RSF seized the city of El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and the last of Darfur’s five capitals to remain outside their control.
West Darfur, West Kordofan, and South Darfur follow with 27 percent, 15 percent, and 13 percent of their schools operating, respectively, according to the statement.
The NGO added that many teachers in Sudanese schools were leaving their jobs due to unpaid salaries.
“We risk condemning an entire generation to a future defined by conflict,” without urgent investment, said the NGO’s chief executive, Inger Ashing.
The conflict, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives, has triggered the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” according to the UN.
On Sunday, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk condemned the increasing number of attacks against “essential civilian infrastructure” in Sudan, including hospitals, markets, and schools.
He also expressed alarm at “the arming of civilians and the recruitment of children.”
The UN has repeatedly expressed concern about the “lost generation” in Sudan.
Even as war rages in the southern Kordofan region, Prime Minister Kamil Idris has announced that the government will return to Khartoum after operating from the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, some 700 km away, for nearly three years.
Main roads have been cleared, and cranes now punctuate the skyline of a capital scarred by the war. Since then, officials have toured reconstruction sites daily, promising a swift return to normal life.
Government headquarters, including the general secretariat and Cabinet offices, have been refurbished. But many ministries remain abandoned, their walls pockmarked by bullets.
More than a third of Khartoum’s 9 million residents fled when the RSF seized the city in 2023.
Over a million have returned since the army retook the city.
A jungle of weeds fills the courtyard of the Finance Ministry in central Khartoum, where the government says it plans a gradual return after nearly three years of war.
Abandoned cars, shattered glass, and broken furniture lie beneath vines climbing the red-brick facades, built in the British colonial style that shaped the city’s early 20th-century layout.
“The grounds haven’t been cleared of mines,” a guard warns at the ruined complex, located in an area still classified as “red” or highly dangerous by the UN Mine Action Service, or UNMAS.
The central bank is a blackened shell, its windows blown out. Its management announced this week that operations in Khartoum State would resume, according to the official news agency SUNA.
At a ruined crossroads nearby, a tea seller has reclaimed her usual spot beneath a large tree.
Halima Ishaq, 52, fled south when the fighting began in April 2023 and came back just two weeks ago.
“Business is not good. The neighborhood is still empty,” the mother of five said,
Near the city’s ministries, workers clear debris from a gutted bank.
“Everything must be finished in four months,” said the site manager.
Optimism is also on display at the Grand Hotel, which once hosted Queen Elizabeth II.
Management hopes to welcome guests again by mid-February.
